We came back to real life when we returned from our honeymoon with work on the Monday morning. I was in work at seven am to take a wagon around Liverpool delivering to all the canteens and restaurants. In going to Hedges I really had taken a step up, the vans were bigger than at PK, they were eight and a half ton Bedford TK’s real lorries not little vans and I had to drive them from day one. The refrigeration was powered by liquid nitrogen and I had to learn how to charge it up each morning before setting off. This involved using an insulated hose and big leather gloves to connect the tank to the lorry. The liquid gas bubbled into the holding tank inside the fridge on the back of the lorry. The lorry doors had to be left open while you did this and it was like a scene from a pop video with all the fog of cold gas pouring out in the early morning light.
I had to check the order of my load the night before so that the loaders could put it onto the lorry in the correct order. It was not funny when someone who did not know the round had put it in “order” for you, you could end up doing twice the distance because the orders were buried under each other. I really enjoyed the job, meeting the staff at the various deliveries and soon built up a rapport with many of them. So much so I hardly ever had to buy a meal and never had to buy a cup of tea. I found out where they wanted the goods and put them away for them, something that I was not really supposed to do, I laughed and chatted with them and it made the day go much quicker. I could do forty or fifty deliveries in a day and not really rush. Some of the office canteens in the centre of Liverpool would be on the second or third floor, I would think nothing of carrying three thirty three pound boxes of frozen chips at a time up to the kitchens. I had time to have a cuppa with the girls at one canteen or another and still have my lunch at another later. I always planned the day so that I could get back to the yard in Scarisbrick for about four pm, in time to do the routes for the next day. Twice a week I had to deliver to the school kitchens in Liverpool and these all had to be finished by two o’clock because the staff only worked until then. I had to make sure some even had the goods before eleven as they had to cook them the same day.
I knew some of the other drivers from earlier in my life, John Davis who had lived in Higgins lane and had been in our gang, Roger Clarke who had been a customer at the Morris Dancers. There were a few girls in the office that had been at school with me at Pinfold and at Wigan Road. I felt like I had really come back home. The wages were really good for that period in my life. The basic wage was one pound an hour and we got a bonus based on the number of drops and the distance we drove. It was really good money for a young lad of twenty years of age in 1974. I could take home as much as fifty pounds a week and I thought it was about time I got a car. I found Vauxhall Viva HA in the Ormskirk Advetiser and I went round to see it. It was not too bad, D reg so 1966, about eight years old with a few rusty spots and I bought it for one hundred pounds cash. I used it for work every day and we would go out on a Sunday for runs into the country too.
One Sunday we were visiting Heathers family and Ken said he fancied some Wensleydale cheese. How did we fancy going out for the afternoon up to Wensleydale? We said ok and we loaded up the cars, there was Heather and I, her parents, her Nan and Pop with uncle Ray in his car, Heathers sister and her boyfriend John, Kenneth and Morag. All of us in three cars, I was driving my Viva, John was driving a newer version, he worked at Ormskirk Motors and Ray drove his car.
It was a convoy going up the M6 to Preston, three cars completely full. We went off into the Pennines past Burnley and up into Skipton. This was real hill country and at times my little viva struggled with the hills. The views were fantastic but some of the motor cyclists we met as we drove these country roads really did take some risks. We passed Settle ,Ribblesdale and we drove on to Hawes high in the Yorkshire dales where we stopped and had a walk around. We could not find a single shop or dairy open selling real Wensleydale cheese anywhere.
You have got to remember this was before the days when everyone opened seven days a week. Pubs only opened twelve until two and the seven until ten thirty. Everyone was having a great time and it was getting to around five o’clock in the evening. Next thing was where we were going to eat. We tried a couple of pubs but they did not do food on Sunday evening. So Ken suggested we try and get to a bigger town where there was bound to be a restaurant open. We drove on to Leyburn and the story was the same, they could not do meals for so many on a Sunday evening. After passing Ripon we got to Harrogate and found a Berni Steak house that would cater for us all. We had a great meal and a real laugh, it was nearly ten o’clock when we got out of the Berni and gone midnight when we arrived back at Burscough. Ken never did get any Wensleydale cheese either.
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